Yeah, how could he have known a guy convicted 5 years before they met was a high-profile abuser. I guess he could have asked lab founder, Minsky, about what services he received from Epstein.
If we don’t want to believe in rehabilitation (not that it did Jeffery any good), then in that case, a resignation seems more appropriate than a few words for an apology.
Ito visited Epstein several times at Epstein's residences, which all apparently are plastered with enough "art" to make someone question if he really was a "reformed" sex offender. It should be perfectly clear to everyone that Ito understood two things: Epstein wasn't rehabilitated and Ito could claim enough plausible deniability if his dirty laundry ever got aired. His apology would be more meaningful if he actually donated to charities out of his own pocket rather than promising to externally raise funds...
Check out the his Wikipedia entry on how lax that sentence was.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Conviction_and...
But Ito doesn't even try to use that defense in his apology, because it would make explicit that he knowingly took money from a sex-offender. So instead he doesn't mention Epstein's conviction at all, uses some weasel language to make it sound like he was unaware of it without explicitly saying so, and tries to make it sound like he (Ito) was just a victim of circumstances.
It's a pretty impressive non-apology apology, since he makes a big show of apologizing for something, but not the actual thing most people find troubling about his behavior.